The price of live Maine Elver eels hit a new high for fishermen this week, $2800.00 per pound! That is a lot, but Elvers, or glass eels are tiny baby eels, and you need about 2000 of them to make a pound. Trickier still, they have to be kept alive as they are ultimately shipped over seas (mostly Japan), where they will be raised to adults, which are a delicacy in some parts of the world.
Once the water warms up a bit (it hasn't yet), they swim up our harbor and into 2 fresh water streams. The streams lead to lakes and ponds where the little eels will mature into big brown slithering eels in 2 or 3 years.
A few years later, the adults make their only return trip back to sea, where they'll bear their young. The young Elvers are born out to sea, the mature parents die, and the circle is complete.
Late March, every year, suddenly the Fyke nets appear in the rivers that flow into our harbor. This is Lily Pond Brook that flows a few feet from my house above (maybe I should set a net,...)
It can be quite a show when the little eels begin to run. Licenses are heavily regulated on a lottery basis and the fishery is fiercely patrolled.
In a couple weeks the water will warm up enough and the little eels will be on the move. As well as the nets, fishermen will start dipping for them in the dark with hand nets and head lamps.
It's a mysterious dance to come upon in the dark. Elver fisher's headlamps sweeping the water, nets swishing. A living lottery.